Amazon.com on Thursday launched a new delivery service throughout much of the Houston area, allowing local Amazon Prime members to get one-hour delivery of thousands of items via the company's website or app.

The move follows by one day the announcement by Wal-Mart Stores that it will offer same-day curbside pickup at seven stores in the region.

Prime Now is available from 8 a.m. to midnight daily, seven days a week. One-hour service costs users $7.99 per purchase, but two-hour service is free.

Amazon representatives say "tens of thousands" of items are available via Prime Now, each delivered by a team dedicated solely to deliveries.

According to Amazon, users can order anything from "books to Kindles to diapers," and now even "big-screen TVs and Aero-Bed inflatable mattresses." Local orders are filled at a fulfillment center in Humble.

Prime Now also offers a selection of frozen and chilled foods in 15 cities. Seattle's Prime Now service offers beer and alcohol, but that service will not be available in Houston. Customers are encouraged to email suggestions to Amazon if there are items they want added to the list available.

Houston photographer Trish Badger used the new service on Thursday, shortly after it launched to buy a few items for her pantry.

She downloaded the app onto her phone and placed an order that was at her home within three hours. She didn't opt for the one-hour service. She was able to track her order from the fulfillment center to her home.

"I got an alert when it was on the way, so I tracked it and it was just a few miles away," Badger says. "Even though the driver had trouble finding my place, the experience was awesome and kind of mind-blowing."

The one-hour Prime Now coverage area extends generally north and west from downtown Houston. Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Cheeseman said that delivery area soon will be expanded.

In other cities, she said, the service has been a hit with parents who can't leave the house with kids but still need essential items like diapers and wipes.

Amazon also has fulfillment centers in the Austin and Dallas areas to handle Prime Now orders in those areas.

In addition to Wal-Mart, which offers curbside pickup at seven stores in Missouri City, Pearland, Spring and Tomball, other retailers have joined the rush to rush-order deliveries to Houstonians.

The app-based Instacart grocery delivery service teamed up with H-E-B, Whole Foods, Costco and Petco to offer home delivery service in parts of Houston, Katy and The Woodlands. Instacart expanded its list of available H-E-B items in September.

Macy's brought same-day home delivery to the Houston area in 2014.

Kroger could begin testing a pilot program for online ordering for curbside pickup in the Houston area within the year, spokeswoman Kristal Howard said.

New dad Ramon Robles, a program director at iHeart Radio in Houston, said he anticipates he and his wife will be using Amazon's Prime Now delivery service for baby items for their newborn son, like diapers and baby wipes.

"I was very happy to discover I was in the ZIP code of service," Robles said. "It's not quite 'Star Trek' transporter future, but I would imagine having the same reaction."

On Thursday, he used it to order chips and salsa delivered to his home in the Heights.

This story includes information from the Houston Chronicle's archives.

Note: This story has been edited to clarify that the Kroger pilot program is not for home delivery.